The field of the disclosure relates generally to machining and manufacturing systems and, more particularly, to steerable electrodes for electromachining systems and massive parallel manufacturing systems.
At least some known modern machines include components, e.g., and without limitation, compressor impellers for gas turbine engines, that are manufactured from a single piece of metal through highly subtractive bulk material removal and finished through precision material removal using known machining processes such as computer numerical control (CNC) milling machines. CNC milling machines typically use carbide cutting blades guided through a computer programmed with computer aided design (CAD) software. Further, many of these known modern machines achieve higher performance than their predecessors through the manufacture of at least some of the machines' components from superalloys that are light, strong, and resistant to high operating temperatures, thereby extending the service life of such components to in excess of ten years. These superalloys include materials such as austenite nickel-chromium-based superalloys, i.e., Inconel® that are difficult to cut and machine using standard machining/milling equipment and methods. Therefore, traditional scraping-away methods using such devices as CNC milling machines have been slowed substantially to preserve the service life of carbide cutting blades. Such a slowdown extends component manufacturing time and raises manufacturing costs. Some known machining systems have had their carbide cutting blades replaced with an electric discharge head, which has accelerated the component manufacturing process.
As mentioned above, once the bulk material removal portion of the component manufacturing process is complete, more precise material removal methods are used to define the often complicated and proprietary three-dimensional (3D) configurations and geometries, e.g., internal fluid passages, that enhance the operating efficiencies of the components. This second step further extends the manufacturing time and expenses associated with the components. Moreover, many of these known components are large in size, e.g., some impellers are 2.5 meters (m) (8.2 feet (ft.)) in diameter. Therefore, due to a combination of the size of the components, the enhanced hardness of the superalloys, and the precision finishing required, many of these known components take on the order of weeks to manufacture.